


My Love, My Sweetness, My Dear

by plaidbaby



Series: Bless the Little Children [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child POV, Gen, John Is Always The Dearest, Moriarty is Not Immune to Feelings of Paternal Inadiquacy, Paternal!Moran, Paternal!Moriarty, References to Suicide, Unconventional Families, We Do What We Have To Do, Yes Dear - That's Foreshadowing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaidbaby/pseuds/plaidbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the kink meme prompt: Jim is Ickle!John's dad/guardian/guy-who-looks-after-him-in-a-parental-fashion. Whether he is this legally and officially or not up to filler.  </p><p>John is four. He like making pictures and going to the park, and he loves Mr. Jim.  Mr. Jim loves him too.  More than anything else in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Love, My Sweetness, My Dear

**Author's Note:**

> Update: Hello all, Man and Monster and my Bless the Little Children series are going to be published in a horror anthology with my friend thursdayplaid. I was instructed to post some information about it in case anyone is interested. The anthology is called Monster Love and it's coming out October 21, 2013. I'd gone into semi-retirement, but thursdayplaid got me going again and helped me get everything ready for publication. There's more information about the book at thursdayplaid's tumblr, thursdayplaid.tumblr.com.

John waited patiently at the door of his care center, because the big hand and the little hand on the clock were on the number right before the up and down time. That meant it was _five o clock_ time. Five o clock time was when Mr. Jim came. He called him Mr. Jim because he wasn’t his really daddy. John’s really daddy was stupid so Mr. Jim blew him up so he’d be able to take proper care of the sweetness that was John. That’s what Mr. Jim said. John was so excited he jumped four times _one, two, three, four_. That was how old John was. He had learned to jump and he was the best in his class at it. After he had learned jumping he had showed Mr. Jim and Mr. Jim had laughed and clapped his hands and given John a big kiss. He said, “Johnny my love, my sweetness, my dear,” (that was what he said when he was really pleased with him; John liked that and kissed him back on his cheek because he loved Mr. Jim SO MUCH. Mr. Jim was the best.) “What would I ever do without you? It’s a big bad world out there, and you are the very best thing in it.”

Mr. Jim also said he was a prism and a fractal. And he was a lens which magnified inspiration. John didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded nice. Moran said it meant that he made Mr. Jim think of very clever ideas just by being him

That was John’s favorite thing. He didn’t like it when Mr. Jim was sad. Sometimes he was sad when he was sick and John got a sharp kiss on his forehead that felt like teeth and then Moran would take him to a lady named Mrs. Ferro and make scary faces and tell her to be nice to John. But that was only sometimes and it was never long and Jim would call him on his mobile and tell him in a funny voice that he was sorry he was sick, but he still loved John very much. That was also John favorite thing, when Mr. Jim said he loved him very much, even when he had a funny voice. He had that a lot lately sometimes. He had lots of plans and things in his bedroom where he went when he still wanted to plan, but he wanted to watch John play too. He showed John pictures and said this is a pool where a bad man died, and this is a fake painting, here are a bad man’s shoes and this is a very clever man who didn’t know his place. The clever man had funny eyes and his hair was all crazy and curly, he had his coat up like he was being all cool. “You’re clever-er-er,” John’s face clouded in confusion. That was a hard word to say, sometimes when a word was hard to say it wasn’t really real.

Moran had come and said maybe John should go stay at the safe house tonight. That had made Mr. Jim angry and he had pulled John into his lap. It was a little roughly, but John was sturdy so he looped his arms around his neck because he always knew when Mr. Jim needed a cuddle. Mr. Jim told Moran to mind his own bloody business and not to try and take his baby away from him just because he was excited. Just because something was interesting. It wasn’t happening again. He would have said so and taken care of things. He was just excited for the game. He’d never hurt John. Never let John be hurt by him. “Isn’t that right Johnny, my love, my sweetness, my dear? I’d never hurt you. I’d kill myself first. Blow my own brains out.”

“Okay,” John said and kissed him, because he really did love Mr. Jim. “I love you.”

Once Mr. Jim was sad because one of the boys in John’s class made John sick and feel very awful and shaky and cry even though he was trying to be a big boy like Moran who didn’t cry ever. He was achy and he couldn’t stop throwing up, which was awful and John didn’t like it. Mr. Jim had been very sad and cried too which was not John’s favorite thing, and had wrapped John in a big soft blanket and carried John around saying that he was the best thing in the world and he had to get better. (He also yelled bad words really loud like he did sometimes when he was sick and told Moran to dispose of the miserable little putrescence that had done this to his baby and his family with him. Moran said Mr. Jim said bad words sometimes when he was very angry, but not to say them too. At least not until he was older.) John had got better so Mr. Jim wouldn’t be sad anymore and he got to sleep in Jim’s bed for a week after he was better even, which was amazing because it was HUGE! And Jim stayed home so John didn’t have to go to the half day care center, he liked the care center, it was nice. But Mr. Jim was nicer. He was the nicest.

John jumped again because he was happy because it was time to go home now and he made a picture today to show Mr. Jim. There was dog in it. John had seen a dog in the park when Mr. Jim took him for kites and laughed and laughed and hugged John.

Moran showed up at the door and not Mr. Jim. “Hello,” John told him and reached up to hold his big fingers (Moran was very big he was good for carrying). 

“Hi little man,” Moran smiled but his face was funny on the eyes and the mouth corners. “Did you have a good day?”

“I had an apple at snack and I made a picture at rest time,” he held up his picture. Moran smiled but it was only an outside smile. John made a frowny face, “Is Mr. Jim sick again?” 

“Lifting now,” Moran said and picked him up, Moran always told John when he was going to pick him up so he would know and not be startled. He put his head under Moran’s chin. Moran smelled like metal and sweat and another thing that smelled a little like guns. John wasn’t to touch guns, John was to tell a grown up if he saw a gun. If he saw a gun in the flat he was to tell Mr. Jim so that Moran could be waterboarded. Jim said Moran was very tough and waterboarding was good for him. Moran said he’d never put the little man in danger. Never ever. Moran called John little man. It made John happy.

One day he was going to be a soldier just like him.

Moran didn’t say if Mr. Jim was sick or not. Instead Moran talked with the teacher, and the teacher said _yessir_ and then Moran got John’s bag and his lunch pail for him.

“Is Mr. Jim sick?” John asked again.

“I need you to be quiet and still right now, okay little man?”

John held tight to Moran, “Is this a danger time?”

Mr. Jim had told John what to do if it was a danger time. When it was a danger time he was to be still and quiet and do what Mr. Jim or Moran told him. Mr. Jim also said if it was the police or the government he was to try and cry and say Mr. Jim had taken him and hurt him and he wanted to go home to his Mummy and Daddy and then Mr. Jim and Moran would come and kill everybody and take John home with them again.

“Yeah,” Moran said and they didn’t go out the front door, but the back one that John hadn’t seen before. It was a sneaky door. John was very quiet and stayed very still. They got into a funny little car that smelled like Moran’s guns and also a little stinky. Moran gave him a sandwich and John ate it neatly because that was polite. “Hey little man. Do you remember when we went to Wales and stayed at the nice little cottage?”

“Yes Moran,” John said because he wasn’t to call Moran sir, since he was more important than Moran. 

“We’re going to go and stay there a little while, just the two of us. I’ll take you fishing again.”

“That was nice. Will Mr. Jim fish too?”

“No little man, Mr. Jim did a stupid thing and had to have some Bond-esque standoff in a bloody pool to prove that his was bigger. Now he has to try and fix his idiot mistake,” he shifted the car angrily and said bad words under his breath.

“Oh,” John told his sandwich very quietly. He hadn’t seen Mr. Jim this morning which meant no dinosaur pancakes, which was what Mr. Jim made him, but he had thought he’d see Mr. Jim after care center. 

“Hey, little man,” Moran said and reached over to give John’s leg a gentle squeeze. “It’ll be okay. Mr. Jim is smart. He’ll figure this out and the whole country won’t be crawling after him and then we’ll go home, alright? But we’ll have fun, won’t we? We can fish and go for walks? We’ll have fun won’t we? Men of the house in a grand adventure.”

“Yeah,” John said and took a very little bite of his sandwich. John’s picture looked very sad.

Moran put a kiss on the top of John’s head and turned the radio on. When they were outside of London Moran’s phone rang and he shifted over so that John could get it out of his pocket and put it on speaker. John knew where that button was.

“Seb so help me,” Mr. Jim said. Seb, was Moran’s grown up name for when he and Mr. Jim did work and other grown up things together. Also _Sebastian_ was too but only for when Mr. Jim was very, very super pleased.

Mr. Jim sounded like he did when he was sad because he was sick.

“I’ve got him, he’s with me now, I got him.”

“You watch him, you do not let him out of your sight, not out of your sight or I will take you apart centimeter by centimeter and make you _eat_ every piece.”

“Um, you’re on speaker phone boss,” Moran said. “He’s sitting right next to me.”

“Hi Johnny,” Mr. Jim sounded happy now and not sad anymore. He did that sometimes. “How are you my sweetness?”

“He’s sad James. He’s sad. Because you had to go play with your new frenemy,” James was Mr. Jim’s grown up name.

“Shut up. You shut up. You idiotic, ordinary, _waste of space,_ I swear-” Mr. Jim voice was scary sometimes and it made John feel confused and sad inside.

John sniffled.

“James, James, stop it, Boss stop it, I will hang up right now if you can’t control yourself.”

“I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry my sweetness. Mr. Jim didn’t mean it. I just had a really icky night last night. I’m sorry. I love you Johnny.”

“I love you too Mr. Jim.”

“It’ll be fun, you and Moran, going on adventures. I bet you’ll make loads of friends,” Mr. Jim made the funny voices that made John feel not as confused and sad and a little like smiling. “It’ll just be like when I’m sick sometimes and you have to stay the night with Mrs. Ferro, you do okay then, don’t you? Sleeping at Mrs. Ferro’s house, it’ll be just like that, only it’ll be a little longer. But Moran will be with you.”

“Yeah,” John said into the phone. “I’ll be okay.”

“I’m sorry about earlier Johnny. Moran just provoked me and made me say mean words and he’ll get his for making me upset you, but I’m not mad at you, no I’m not. Not at my very favorite sweetness who I love more than everything in the whole world.”

“Everything?” Moran asked.

Mr. Jim was quiet, “You know I’d kill myself before I’d hurt him. You know I’d blow my own brains out if I thought I was a danger to him. That I would _destroy_ any danger to him.”

“I need to know really,” Moran shifted in his seat and looked very pale and tight around the mouth. “We can’t talk about this with him listening I know that, but I need to know. You know how he is, _your new friend.”_

“Yes,” Mr. Jim said in his funny slidey voice. “Yes I do, he and his brother. They’ll dig and dig and dig. Dig until they pull everything up. All the secret princes hid away in their secret towers. Ask them all sorts of questions, make them be normal. That is a problem. The final big problem. I’ll take care of it. You know I solve problems very well Seb. I’ll solve this one if I have to bring London to its knees to do it. Don’t you worry. I was made to solve final problems. I love you Johnny. You know that don’t you? Like I’ve never loved anything or anyone. Not my whole life.”

“I love you too Mr. Jim,” John said. “Are you sad today Mr. Jim? Don’t be sad. I’ll be good for Moran, I promise.”

“I know baby, I know sweetness. You’re the very best. How was care today?”

“It was good. We learned shapes and reading again. I had an apple at lunch, it was red and made nice sounds but it didn’t really taste like anything.”

“Apples never really do, do they?” Mr. Jim agreed.

“Then at rest time I drew a picture.”

“Oh really? Send me a picture! Do you remember how to take pictures with Moran’s phone?”

“Yeah. Do I have to make the call stop?” John didn’t know if he wanted to do that.

“Yeah, but I’ll call you right back, as soon as I get the picture.”

John hesitated and bit his lip before he rung off and lifted the camera carefully with his little hands to take a quick clicking snapshot of him picture and send it to Mr. Jim. His number was the one that said J-I-M. That was how you spelled Jim. As soon as the phone rang John smiled again and hit the speaker button.

“Hello again Johnny!” Mr. Jim said in his happy voice. “Told you I’d call right back again.”

“Hi!” John said.

“I liked your picture, its brilliant.”

John smiled a little.

“Will you tell me about it?”

“It’s a dog, like at the park,” John said excitedly. “It was a pretty dog at the park where we went with the kites. I liked that.” Mr. Jim listened to him talk about the park and how it was brilliant, and about the care center and about his sandwich. It was a tasty sandwich. Mr. Jim always laughed when he was supposed to and told John a funny joke and that John was a good boy.

“I’ve got to go now Johnny, my love, my sweetness, my dear. And I may not be able to talk to you for a little while. But I love you. Mind Moran, okay?”

“Alright Mr. Jim,” John smiled into the phone and pressed a kiss to the speaker.

“I’ll come and get you,” Mr. Jim said. “I’ll come as soon as I can. Moran will take care of you, okay?”

“Okay, bye Mr. Jim.”

“Bye, Johnny.” 

John turned off the phone and waited so Moran to sit funny so he could put it back in his pocket.

“We’ll be okay little man,” Moran told him, smiling his funny smile again. “You and I, we’ll be okay.”


End file.
